


[S]Dirk: Vocabularize

by Strilonde_Librarian (Hardcore_Muser)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied Angst, Poor Dirk, Post Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 00:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9211979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hardcore_Muser/pseuds/Strilonde_Librarian
Summary: Growing up under the rule of an evil fish queen, Dirk never really had time to brush up on retro Earth domesticity.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love Dirk.

“What is this?” Dirk asked, holding the curious but intimidating instrument with perhaps more caution than necessary.

Jane chuckled heartily. “It’s a whisk! No need to be frightened of it,” she beamed.

“What’s it for?”

Jane took it from him. “You hold it like so,” she said, demonstrating the technique, “and use it to mix ingredients. Usually it’s used in baking sweet things, because it so good for breaking up eggs and combining them with other ingredients. It’s much quicker than using a spoon or such.”

His hand hovered over the next mystery on the table. He almost didn’t want to go through with this expedition; it only highlighted his ignorance about some of the most basic things. Your average seventeen-year-old boy, however oblivious to household chores, knew what a whisk was. 

“This one?” He asked with further trepidation. It was sharp and looked distinctly weapon-like, even if Dirk couldn’t work out how one would wield it.

“A corkscrew,” she replied, patient as ever. “It’s used to open bottles sealed with a cork.”

Dirk winced a little in anticipation for his next words. “And what, pray, is cork?”

Jane didn’t miss the subtle crinkle in his brow as he asked, but decided to let it be. “It’s kind of a strange substance, to be honest with you! Maybe we have a bottle of wine and I could just show you?” 

She busied herself with the bottom of the pantry and Dirk spaced out for a minute. Well, not so much spaced out as spaced directly into a small scale crisis. He couldn’t live like this, not knowing anything at all about household life. He had never had a well-stocked kitchen, or mail, or a license, or even experience standing in a crowd until he had been thrust into a life of extreme domesticity on Earth C. He had uncovered an unknown quirk of his psyche that seemed a lot like social anxiety. He had discovered that he had no idea how to sustain himself if not on microwaveable meals.

Jane emerged from the pantry victorious, triumphantly holding a bottle of wine above her head. Her elation was short-lived as she realized that they were doing this, man. The feelings jam was unavoidable at that point. “Mister Strider,” she said, her voice heavy with accusation. “We are supposed to be having a fun, educational time but you look thoroughly unimpressed. Why is that?”

“Because I’m a next level fucking idiot, Janey. I am so moronic, I know none of this. You could fill a book with the shit I don’t know. Lots of books. And sure, I’d love to read them, but I’m so fucking dumb, I’m sure I’d spontaneously forget how to read. And then I’d have all these books lying around, and because I’m too stupid to operate the thermostat, I’d have to burn them for heat in the bitter winter, but because of my lack of cultural sensitivity, I’d be completely unawares to the horrors that book burning is associated with. I’d be sitting there in a puddle of my own piss, wondering why –”

“Dirk, I am Jewish, so even when you’re breaking down, please stay away from the holocaust as a subject of discussion,” Jane scolds him, her tone irritated but motherly.  
Contrition never quite looked natural on Dirk’s face, but he wore it anyway. “Outta line. Sorry.”

Jane set down the wine in the melange of household items and scooped Dirk into a hug. His pointy, angular shoulders scrunched together in anxiety and embarrassment, his whole body completely rigid under his friend’s comforting hands. Hugs were definitely not something to which he was accustomed, so he fumbled with his hands at her back, entirely unsure of what he was supposed to do as she buried her face into his chest and squished him as hard as her (surprisingly strong) arms were able.

“You gotta talk about it, DiStri,” she mumbled, the sound muffled from his now crinkled shirt. “Whatever it is, you gotta tell Janey.”

He sighed. “I should know this shit. Really, I should know all of this. It’s not like I didn’t have the entirety of the human internet at my fingertips for years, it’s not like I didn’t have access to this information, and now, my lack of foresight has landed me in a situation where I’m perpetually the dumbest in the room. Do you think I’m the dumbest in the room, Jane?”

Her arms retreated and she took a step back, righting her glasses with a look of fierce determination on her face. “Why did you ask me to help with this? Why not Roxy? Then again, she’s probably in the same boat the poor dear. Dave, even?” Dirk didn’t miss that she had omitted Jake.

Her answer? Because he trusted her. Completely. 

“Because you’re gonna give me the least shit about it? Roxy won’t know shit about domestic life anyway, poor chick probably can’t even spell ‘grocery’. Dave would not miss an opportunity to bag me out like this; boy wasn’t raised right but he was raised by me,” he said, capping off the poorly acted nonchalance with a shrug.

Jane softened. “It is reasonable for you not to know things. You lived in the ocean and had never seen another human being until relatively recently. You had other priorities, and that’s okay! And I can assure you, you’re always the smartest in the room. In any room. You’re the smartest. It’s you,” she finished, a self-satisfied grin on her face at her sick as meme.

“So then, what’re these?” He grabbed a handful of circular rings he had found in her kitchen drawer.

“Technically, they’re egg rings, for all your circular fried egg needs, but I mostly use them as extra large cookie cutters!”

He put them down with a soft clatter. “Cool. I think I’m satisfied with kitchen nomenclature. I am one with the cutlery.”

Jane hopped up onto the island countertop and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Great. What room shall we vocabularize next?”

“Bathroom. I have no clue with most of that shit. Bro never really stocked me up on moisturizer.” He did that thing where he was there one minute and gone the next, leaving Jane to smile in his wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Poor Dirk.


End file.
